BIOGRAPHY

Fabio Modica is a Sicilian artist, born in Catania in 1978. His earliest works can be ascribed to the classical Renaissance style, with references to Greek philosophy and a predilection for subjects wrapped in a Caravaggesque light. His art accommodates acrylics, chalks, watercolours and, above all, experimental mixed media, in which volcanic sand and natural elements make up blends of great material impact. 

The year 2002 marks a decisive departure from the classic figurative style towards a semi-abstract and highly symbolic perspective. The artist’s newly fondness for abstract lines and spatula strokes triggers a clash - one that can never be solved - between the realistic patterns of his youth and the expressionism of his maturity. Hence, a fluidity of texture, the aggregation and disintegration of forms and, ultimately, a figurative trait that stems from the deconstruction of itself. 

 Profound, compelling eyes, facing the viewer; a thick, disjointed texture; a striking chromatic variance; arcane carvings emerging from rough coats of paint; vibrant, uneven spatula strokes thrown on huge canvases or polyptychs; and - his signature style - a mindful state of self-awareness arising from a conflicted, piercing gaze, where one truly sees the objective correlative of a mood, a piece of memory or an epiphanic moment. 

"There’s scarcely a face”, says Modica of his portraits in an interview, “and yet endless faces in one". This, and much more, provides inspiration for Γνῶσις (gnôsis, "knowledge"), the first of many artworks on the exploration of consciousness. A prolific artist, Modica is the author of several pictorial series, often endowed with Greek names and Platonic reminiscences: an example, among others, is “Prisoners of matter”, a tribute to the famous myth of the cave. Κοντά (kontá, “near, close") and Παιδιά (paídia, "game, child"), his latest endeavours, combine a Greek reading of his native island with a postmodern re-thinking of the expressionist style, leading to a marked polystylism, a fragmented and mosaic-like syntax, the artistic installation and, not least, the contemporary disguise of classical nude. 

 In Modica’s installations, faces and bodies try, often in vain, to reach out and find each other, and, in doing so,

they force themselves to transcend, albeit with some hesitation, their cultural as well as their physical horizons.The shredding of the pictorial surface does not mark a disappearance of the subject, rather an expansion of it, a willingness to “turn away” from oneself so as to get in touch with the other or be touched by it.

This view echoes the sublime form of “attention” that the French philosopher Simone Weil described as “the rarest and purest form of generosity”. What these anonymous faces have in common is the relentless quest for “contact” - for a true attention to the other. Modica’s figures yearn for a connective energy that will restore the naturalness and vitalism of a child’s language and cleanse human relationships of the depersonalising effects of technological massification. 

It is a cry for authentic communication, positively “playful”, able to mimic the early “signs” of the child in his sensory awakening to the world. And, at the same time, to re-educate the coming generations to a dialogue that should be vital rather than “viral”.

 Modica is also a street artist and has partaken in art events promoting the importance of recycling in Art. In 2012, a successful cycle of works was entirely made of trash materials. Here Modica's portraits incorporate multicoloured nails, screws, pins, plastic tools, denim, clipped wires, whirling cables and recycled wood, all of which contributing to a more vivid imagery. Modica is currently involved in the realization of massive murals in urban environments, featuring portraits of key figures in art, literature and leaders of political causes. 

Fabio Modica is also a professor: he has taught painting and interior design at the Nike Academy of Fine Art and Restoration in Catania. 

Modica’s artwork has been included in many solo, group exhibitions and in permanent collections throughout USA, Japan, China and Europe especially in Spain, France and Italy, where his work was added to the MACS Museum collection in 2016. At present, he is represented by the Johnson Lowe Gallery and Aberson Exhibits in the USA, by the Whitestone Gallery in Japan and China and by Arionte Contemporary ART in his hometown, Catania.